तूफ़ान से लाए हैं हम यह कष्ती निकाल के
इस देश को रखना मेरे बच्चों संभाल के
They built up Jamia Millia Islamia, stone by stone, sacrifice by sacrifice.
—Sarojini Naidu
I am a bit of a history buff and a loud-mouth about the fact that I could never pass by a building in Jamia without being reminded of an anecdote related to the university. Late Historian and Ex-Vice Chancellor, Mushirul Hasan had been extremely vocal about the fact, that the university has painstakingly dedicated each building in it after a person, who was either part of the freedom struggle or offered service to the nation by serving in Jamia.
The walls of Jamia talk of freedom fighters, educationists and cultural icons, which makes taking a stroll in Jamia equivalent to turning the pages of History. Jamia is quite the microcosm of the city. It is based where it shifted to its modest quarters, first in Karol Bagh in 1925. Delhi apart from being quadrilingual is a city that houses within itself stories that await recognition and perusal. It is a city that names its lanes after the people it wants us to remember. History is recorded in Delhi’s walls, much like Jamia itself.
Seventy-two years ago, a minute apart from one another, two nations came into existence who were united under a common oppressor, who shared the same struggles, the same names as their pioneers of freedom and equal zeal for Independence, until Independence actually came in 1947 with collateral damage, and with it many of the pioneers of freedom the two countries shared in common, disappeared from the pages of history.
As the last of those who have been eye-witnesses of partition fade away, it has become a fad to distort history to project it as what propaganda wants it to be— because until the lion learns how to write, every story will glorify the hunter, which is why it is time that we, reclaim our past.
Indians remember the freedom struggle every year on 15th August which came to us, as a contribution of our greatly celebrated leaders as well as our unsung heroes, the ones less talked about, the names our history books haven’t been generous in highlighting, whether they be Ashraf Ali Thanawi, Abdul Qayyum Ansari or Fazle Haq Khairabadi who recorded an entire mathnavi on the walls of cellular jail, while serving his sentence after protesting against the British Raj.
The names that were lost within the pages of history books during the long struggle for freedom, those who have not found their respect in India or across the border are— The heroes of no man’s land. Jamia is that no man’s land and these pioneers of freedom still walk here.
The institution has tried preserving the memory of female revolutionaries like Begum Hazrat Mahal, Aruna Asaf Ali and Bi-Amma, who was the first Muslim woman to address a political gathering while wearing a Burqa and the mother of Maulana Muhammad Ali Jauhar. The main road on which Jamia is situated is named after him.
It is no secret that Jamia is the lusty child of the non-cooperation days and the entire Khilafat movement manifested into a university— a few revolutionary-minded teachers found out that they had differences with the administration of the MAO College that was predominantly British by that time, and would not lift the ban on their students participating in the Khilafat movement.
Mahatma Gandhi’s genius lay in the fact, that he could take the freedom struggle from door to door and connect the larger freedom movement to everyone’s day to day problems. He had a gift that allowed him to connect every subaltern revolt to the freedom movement. The caliphate became the link between the Indian Islamic community and the movement for Independence.
Dr Mukhtar Ahmad Ansari, before Jamia was even founded, had already led a Medical Mission to Turkey to help the ottoman soldiers wounded in the Balkan wars, detailed accounts of which we find in his correspondence with another Jamia founder, Maulana Mohammed Ali Jauhar.
However, the sympathies Indian Muslims had with the caliphate were not without a basis. After the 1857 sepoy mutiny was quelled, the British administration came after its perpetrators, behind which it found several Muslim names, these Indian Muslims were forced to flee sometimes from the British administration, and at the conjunction of the two great empires— the Ottoman caliphate and the British Empire, as Seema Alavi writes in her book Muslim Cosmopolitanism in the Age of the Empire “a new Muslim network was born in the aftermath of 1857—buttressed by European empires, yet resolutely opposed to them”.
One such personality in her book is Haji Imdadullah Makki, whose disciples have been constructive to the creation of Jamia and the freedom struggle in general, directly or indirectly. These networks had made the dissipation of knowledge in the Muslim world easier— as printed books started being available and widely read by the Muslim community everywhere in the world, which lead to the spread of a pan-Islamic culture. The fall of the caliphate would mean the severing of these lines and connectivity, which is why Maulana Mohammed Ali Jauhar had led his Khilafat delegation to England in 1920, representing the interest of Indian Muslims, who had benefited from these networks.
The greatest contribution of the Khilafat movement in itself was that it brought the western educated Muslims and the ulema together reconciling differences in between them and on its confluence Jamia Millia Islamia was born. The foundation stone was laid by Sheikh-ul-Hind Maulana Mehmud-ul-Hasan, the silk conspiracy revolutionary, on October 29,1920, at Aligarh whose memory is commemorated in the form of a Gate, which is now the entrance to the Jamia School, the oldest standing buildings of the present campus that underwent restoration works under Professor S.M. Akhtar.
Since its inception, Jamia has always stood for the co-existence of Islamic values along with secularism and the institution echoes its founding committee member Hussain Ahmad Madani’s thought process, who believed that it was possible to be a nationalist and patriotic towards one’s nation, while being a good Muslim, in fact, it was necessary.
However, the struggle for freedom of the elders associated with Jamia did not end with the Khilafat movement. Maulana Mohammed Ali Jauhar’s zest for freedom was commendable considering— While he was in British custody, two of his daughters, age 20 and 21 fell ill. It was said that the British urged Muhammad Ali to apologise for his views, so that he may be allowed to visit his dying daughters, but he refused.
He spoke at the First Round Table Conference held in London in 1930 and these are his exact words-
“Today the one purpose for which I came is this–that I want to go back to my country if I can go back with the substance of freedom in my hand. Otherwise, I will not go back to a slave country. I would even prefer to die in a foreign country, so long as it is a free country; and if you do not give us freedom in India you will have to give me a grave here.”
On 4th January 1931, he passed away in London, remaining true to his words, and owning up to his vow in which he had said: “We must have in us the will to die for the birth of India as a free and united nation.” His word was honoured and he was given a resting place in Jerusalem, Palestine near Masjid-e-Aqsa after a pompous procession.
While Zakir Hussain’s mausoleum within the university premises, designed by Habib Rehman, is a constant reminder of his contributions to the institution, and rightly so because Zakir Hussain Sahib has remained to Jamia what Nehru was to the nation— the architect of a modern institution, that he built from the ground up, brick by brick, tear by tear. Founders of Jamia Millia Islamia, who had served the cause of the freedom struggle and our nation by serving the institution, like Hakim Ajmal Khan, lie forgotten in obsolete graves. Mukhtar Ahmad Ansari, on the other hand, who has a road dedicated in his honour in Delhi, lies in his desolate grave in Jamia and so does Aapa Jaan Gerda Philipsborn, the German Educationist who wished to be buried within the premises of the university. These graves within the university premises have been abandoned by students and teachers alike.
Jamia has had a long history, and by being a part of this aberration in the time-space continuum, that is Jamia you are contributing to the pages of history. Being a part of Jamia, is like being a part of its heritage, of its Ganga-Jamuni tehzeeb, that we must struggle to preserve, because what good is it, if we don’t. And, if we don’t, who will. It is our responsibility, that we remember, remember the revolutionaries who laid their entire lives down struggling for the freedom of India— who lived and died Indians. Here, walls have eyes and ears. Here, stones speak.
We are the upstarts of interfaith marriages and we are the revolution. We are Jamia Millia Islamia.